PRESS RELEASE

MADE IN WOODSTOCK VII

The Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) is pleased to announce Made in Woodstock VII featuring work by CPW’s artists-in-residence from 2012-2014.

The seventh installment of CPW’s Made In Woodstock exhibition series features 17 artists whose explorations and dialogues through photography, video, and artists books invite us to reconsider the familiar, provide access to that which stands before us yet is invisible, and share personal journeys which connect us all on a universal level.

Photography is a defining tool for addressing the complexities of identity – personal, cultural, and national. The question of what is American identity is particularly complex terrain. Photographers Caleb Ferguson (New Paltz, NY), Susan Surface (Seattle, WA), and Kathya Maria Landeros (Sacramento, CA) employ the camera to share the stories of what may be unseen, disappearing, or ignored in our country. The performative portraits of Endia Beal (Winston-Salem, NC) and Joanna Tam (Jamaica Plains, MA) challenge prevailing norms and open conversations about the suppression of cultural identity in the workplace and who is American.

“Place” is layered and multi-faceted terrain. It is fraught with beauty, history, identity, and secrets. To the naked eye, only the aesthetics of a given landscape may prevail. Yet when “place” is framed and contextualized through the lens of the camera, we are afforded an opportunity to not only engage in its splendor but its complexities as well. The performative de-constructive methodologies of Jessica Vaughn (Brooklyn, NY) Rodrigo Valenzuela (Houston, TX), and Ratna Khanna (India) interrupt our ability to merely gaze upon place, challenging us to reject the orderliness of the present and consider the accumulation of narratives place absorbs. Daniel Ballesteros (Brooklyn, NY) and Noritaka Minami (Chicago, IL) both explore our ever present desire to impose order on natural systems through man-made systems, e.g. architecture. Working with large-format cameras, Ballesteros and Minami each capture the seductive beauty of these places and open the door to conversation about the human impulses they represent. For visual story teller Wenxin Zhang (New York, NY), there are secret worlds, unknown to us as a result of the ever-growing fracture between human psyche and that of the animal/natural world. Inspired by the environs of Woodstock, Zhang creates visual moments that call to a time when those worlds where more closely aligned.

In not representing specific peoples and events, photography has contributed to historic marginalization and oppression. The medium has also provided visual story tellers in and outside of those communities with the tools needed to unearth the voices that have been written out of history Jungeun Lee (Dallas, TX), Alma Leiva (Miami, FL), and Danielle Scruggs (Chicago, IL) challenge the dominant narratives around the history of Comfort Women in China, the prevailing violence in places like the Dominican Republic and the exclusion of women of color in images that connect the beauty of the landscape with the beauty of the human subject.

The camera, in the hands of Kameelah Janan Rasheed (Brooklyn, NY) Maria Buyondo (Brooklyn, NY) and Mijoo Kim (New York, NY), provides the opportunity for familial generations to interact. Rejecting the role of visual chronicler or family historian, they create dialogues between generations and reexamine their relationships within the frame of the photograph and the space between the camera’s lens and their subject.

Rounding out the exhibition is Sherwin Rivera Tibayan (Austin, TX) who re-examines the indexical nature of the photographic medium and thread of influence from one generation to the next by elevating the index of Susan Sontag’s seminal publication, On Photography (1977) to a visual art work – a conscious look back in a time where photographic language is evolving at a break-neck pace.

Collectively, CPW’s artists-in-residence build upon existing genres while injecting their own personal inquiries and perspectives. Made in Woodstock VII champions these 17 remarkably talented artists-of-color and provides a forum for a visual engagement with a wide yet interconnected range of photographic methods, interests, and subjects explored. They celebrate and enrich Woodstock’s historic role as a home, community, and source of inspiration for generations of artists – past, present, and future.

About WOODSTOCK A-I-RCPW’s Artist-in-Residency Program is designed to support artists-of-color working in the photographic arts who reside in the United States that would benefit with access to time, facilities, financial, critical, and technical support. This activity is created with an emphasis on supporting artists working in the photographic arts who are at the brink of their careers and promising talent. The drive for this program is to free the artist from the busy routines and demands of everyday – and to provide a sanctuary for creativity. WOODSTOCK A-I-R encourages participants to pursue creative risk-taking in an environment rich in cultural resources. Working without distraction or interruption, participants focus intensely on their own work, continuing works in progress, setting goals for the future, and breaking new ground.